Eagles

ECHL changes place Colorado Eagles in new division

League won't reschedule to create more divisional meetings

With the departure of two teams from the ECHL's Western Conference for the upcoming season, the league was left with questions that needed answering.

Those problems surrounding the format of the playoffs and structure of the league with only seven clubs in the Western Conference were addressed by the Board of Governors at the league meetings held in Las Vegas this past week.

Four teams previously of the Eastern Conference - Evansville, Fort Wayne, Kalamazoo and newest ECHL member Indy - will now reside in the Western Conference's Midwest Division along with the Colorado Eagles for the 2014-15 season.

"I support the move thinking this is going to give our fans and players an opportunity to see some fresh teams in our building that we haven't had the opportunity to see a whole bunch of, so I think it's going to be very exciting," Colorado's coach and general manager Chris Stewart said. "It's a lot different setup from what you'd normally see, but I've always supported the creative side of change."

The realignment comes on the heels of the ECHL announcing the teams' schedules weeks before, and despite the Eagles' place in a new division, they'll only have one series against a division opponent during the regular season as the league will not reschedule.

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Colorado will host the Kalamazoo Wings for a three-game series March 27, 28 and 29 at the Budweiser Events Center, but won't face any other divisional opponent until potential playoff matchups at the end of the year.

Things became complicated for the league after the Las Vegas Wranglers were unable to secure a building to play in after their contract with the Orleans Arena ran out following last season, forcing them to sit this season out.

"Well we were thrown a curveball with Las Vegas not being a part of the league this year, and at no fault of anybody, it was just something that came our direction," Stewart said. "It was not anticipated; everybody thought it was going to be a done deal that Las Vegas was going to be able get through this year. That's the mechanics of sports. It's not an easy business and those things happen."

The West's other division will be the Pacific consisting of Alaska, Bakersfield, Idaho, Ontario, Stockton and Utah, which almost exclusively make up Colorado's 2014-15 schedule.

A change in the format of the ECHL also means the league will have a different looking postseason than in previous years. The top four teams in each division will qualify for the playoffs with all four rounds being a best-of-seven series.

However, the first two rounds will be within the division as the first-place team faces the fourth-place finisher, and second meeting the third. The winner of each series will face each other in the next round, or Division Finals.

Winners of the Midwest Division will face the champion of the Pacific in the Western Conference Finals, and the same for the North and South Divisions in the East.

Colorado could potentially meet a team in the first and second round of the playoffs that it never played during the regular season, a fact Stewart views as tough but equally thrilling for fans and players.

"When it comes down to us playing teams out East in the playoffs to start off with, I think that's really something that will be exciting," he said. "This deal is going to work out very well; I'm excited about it. It's not going to be easy because familiarity is going to be completely different. It's going to be a challenge."

Other changes — The ECHL also announced two rule changes for the 2014-15 season with the approval of hybrid icing as is used in the NHL. Hybrid icing allows the linesman to blow the play dead and call an automatic icing if he determines that the puck will cross the goal line and the defending player is not behind in the race to the end-zone faceoff dots in his defensive zone. The league previously used no-touch icing.

A slight alteration was made to the overtime format for the regular season with teams starting overtime of all regular season games in the opposite end they started the game.

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